


knock, knock

by bukkunmoonsin (bukkunkun)



Series: The X-Men AU No One Asked For [11]
Category: Heneral Luna (2015)
Genre: 3 seconds in the movie, Alternate Universe - Mutants, But mostly fluff, Father Figures, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Gen, but andoy appeared for like, i know that i posted this in the moon tag and the general is wanting, screaming yeah but that makes him count LAUGHS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-25
Updated: 2015-11-25
Packaged: 2018-05-03 08:15:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5283446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bukkunkun/pseuds/bukkunmoonsin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Bonifacio was there for him, then so would he.</p>
            </blockquote>





	knock, knock

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr version here](http://bukkun-moonsin.tumblr.com/post/133925196613/knock-knock).
> 
> ok so palapit na birthday ni andoy at mamimigay nanaman ako ng fics pagdating ng araw. unless mag hohols. im so sorry andoy,,,,, dedicated to @anditoakoparamagkasala at tumblr dahil sa #andoyfeels na usapan namin sa twitter nung isang gabi.
> 
> ANYWAY NAPAMAHAL AKO (LALO) KINA ANDOY SA RECENT HEADCANON DEVELOPMENT KO FOR KALYESERYE AU (olso on tweeter) BUT I CAN’T WRITE IT YET LAUGHS I HAVE WAY TOO MANY THINGS TO DO sobs

He was just a child, he was told, when he first entered the Katipunan. He was met with stares, with uncertainty, with small, hushed snickers, and he could hear their thoughts flying through the air like flies in a monsoon afternoon.

_What’s a kid doing here?_

_Does he think this is a playground?_

_Look at him. He looks like a wet little chick._

Emilio Dizon—no, Emilio Jacinto (and Dizon, sometimes, when the situation called for it) was no wet chick.

Nor was a kid in a playground.

His expression tightened, and one of the men in the stifling little hut groaned, and let out a choked yell, before collapsing, blood trickling down from his nose as he convulsed on the ground.

“I am an _Afortunado_ ,” he declared, cold like how his mind closed up as he spied some people get up, threateningly starting to demonstrate their powers to him as well. “A telepath. I can destroy any one of you—or I can make you destroy yourselves whenever—” the man he broke gasped in pain again, and some people stepped away from him. “And _how_ ever I like.”

“I truly hope that won’t be the case.” A warm voice spoke, and he turned to see the Supremo himself, his cousin standing behind him with an exasperated look on her face.

Ah, yes. That was right. He promised her he’d behave.

He straightened up, and tried looking Bonifacio in the eye. The man was much taller than he was, and that did nothing to help his suddenly frayed nerves. He took a deep breath, and pulled up mental walls around his mind.

He liked to imagine them as clear, crystalline structures. Glittering like the surface of flowing river water, but harder than steel or any other metal in the world. Jagged, like diamonds, impenetrable, unmovable.

Bonifacio gave him a long look, and he found himself having the urge to run away.

And yet—Bonifacio gave him a slow, warm smile, and for the first time in his short, short life—

He felt a knock on the walls of his mind.

The older man grasped his hand in a warm, sure grip, and gave it a single, confident shake.

“Emilio Jacinto.” The way he said his name was like a father welcoming a long-lost son home, and it sat unnervingly well in Jacinto’s head, like the pleasant buzz of insects in the late afternoons, when the sky was orange, and the wind was hot and pleasant on his skin. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Many, of which, I hope are good.” He replied, fighting to stay cold, aloof and firm, but the way Tagalog rolled off his tongue was bulky, like a sugar cube loping off a teaspoon.

“More than you can imagine.” Bonifacio replied, and the knocking on his mind ceased. “But please, Senyor Jacinto, by all means, do join the Katipunan. We could do well with a mind like yours.”

Jacinto already knew his answer—it was the whole reason he was there.

“Why else would I come here for?”

Bonifacio’s smile widened into a grin, and yet, there was still warmth and great admiration, clear in the man’s warm brown eyes.

“Well, then good. You can take your oaths right now.”

Jacinto was sworn into the Katipunan that evening, and soon, in the days that followed, was by Bonifacio’s side, talking to him long into the night about the Katipunan’s charter.

He hadn’t realised the knocking had come back, not when he suddenly yawned one evening, and Bonifacio stopped, mid-sentence, to grin lopsidedly at him.

“Sleepy?” he asked, and Jacinto shook his head.

“No, never.” He yawned again, and he inwardly groaned. How traitorous the body was.

Bonifacio laughed, not unkindly, and only then did Jacinto notice the knocking again.

“It’s alright, Jacinto.” He warmly told him. “You can go to bed. It has been late—and you’d been travelling. We can continue this tomorrow.”

And suddenly, he was just so… _tired._ He didn’t want to move. He blamed it on his fatigue, then, when he simply groaned, and laid his head on the table, much to Bonifacio’s amusement. He mumbled something (he was trying to say something like ‘I’m not a child, _Supremo_ ’, or ‘I’m not tired’) and earned himself a small chuckle from Bonifacio.

“Come on, young man.” He said, and easily picked him up. Jacinto was too tired to protest, and Bonifacio smiled at him kindly. “Even nearly-adults need their rest.”

“I’m… eighteen.” He mumbled, and the man chuckled.

“And still far too short.” He added mildly, earning him a sleepy grunt of protest. At that Bonifacio laughed, and shook his head fondly. “Ah. The finest mind of the Katipunan, reduced to a sleepy little kitten.”

“Hush yourself, _Supremo_.”

He was sounding petulant, and he was starting to lose his hold on his mental barriers. He could hear Bonifacio’s thoughts slip past the crystalline walls—he could hear the fondness, the admiration and awe the man had for him, and that somehow made the walls crumble, if just a little.

The knocking was back, and louder than before.

“Hm. You’re like a son I’ve never had.”

Jacinto hummed, too sleepy to catch the depth the man’s words had, and Bonifacio sighed, before carrying him out of the office.

He later chalked it up to fatigue, and lack of self-control, what else he had done that night.

As Bonifacio helped the young man into bed, he was met with a sleepy, childlike little smile from Jacinto, and his heart melted a little bit.

“G’night.” He slurred, and Bonifacio smiled.

“Good night, Emilio.” He warmly said, “Sleep tight—and dream beautiful things tonight.”

“Mm.”

The knocking was incessant, and louder than ever.

“You too, father.”

That made Bonifacio _freeze_ , and Jacinto had realised something.

The knocking had stopped.

 _Because he had opened the walls_.

\---

They didn’t speak of that night.

They didn’t have to.

The next morning, Bonifacio was surprised to find the presence of another mind in his, and he turned to see Jacinto, still not put-together, his shirt tucked out and creased, hair a messy nest and his eyes still bleary with sleep.

“… Good morning.” He ventured, and he heard Jacinto’s voice in his head more than in his ears.

_Good morning._

Bonifacio looked around him, confused, and he heard Jacinto give him a small, rough-voiced laugh.

“That was me, _Supremo_.”

“I realised.”

Bonifacio looked genuinely surprised at Jacinto’s… rawness, and the young man looked a little sheepish, looking infinitely younger as he scratched the back of his neck.

“What I said last night, I—”

“Why is your voice in my—”

The two of them stopped, realising they had talked simultaneously, and Jacinto was the first to relent. “You first, _Supremo_.”

Bonifacio hesitated, but he eventually spoke. “Why is your voice in my head?”

 _Because…_ the telepath looked down at his feet, looking embarrassed. _I let you in my head._

Bonifacio blinked. “But I am no telepath.”

“Yes, I know. You—you can turn anything into bombs. You’re one of the strongest _Afortunado_.” Jacinto felt uncomfortable, speaking to people with his mind, and the sound of his voice helped him calm down.

“ _Mapalad_ , Jacinto.” Bonifacio corrected him gently. “You should call yourself what you rightfully are.” Carefully he brushed back Jacinto’s mild cowlick and chuckled when he saw it stand again. “Am I understood?”

“ _Mapalad._ ” It tasted foreign on his tongue, like the burn of _cervesa_ instead of the caress of _sikulate,_ but he decided he rather liked it. “… Yes, _Supremo._ I think I understand.”

Bonifacio smiled at that, and nodded. “So. Why am I in your head?”

“In all honesty, I’m not sure myself.” Jacinto confessed, and flushed in embarrassment. “I just… I… don’t know.”

At that the man’s smile softened.

“I’ve heard your story, Jacinto. It was your uncle who raised you, when your father died?”

He must have looked like a child then, he thought, with the way he frowned and looked down at his feet. With the way his chest still stung at the thought of his father. With the guilt he felt when he left schooling. With the shame he felt when he thought about wasting his uncle’s hard-earned money for his tuition, even if the reason why he left was a good one.

“Oh, my dear boy.” Bonifacio’s tone was warm, heavy with fondness, and Jacinto was shocked to see tears streaking down the man’s face.

“ _Supremo_ —”

“You were projecting.” He choked, pulling him into a warm hug. “I’m sorry. You’d been suffering.”

 _I do miss my father._ Jacinto’s thought rang clearly in their heads, and the young boy—barely a _man,_ buried his face into Bonifacio’s shirt.

And yet no tears could come out. The older man cried out his share.

They stayed like that for a long while, Jacinto simply pouring out what he could not say into the older man’s head, and Bonifacio took it all in with wordless, fond acceptance. He felt so much lighter. So much _safer,_ safer than he’d ever felt before.

“I don’t mind what happened last night.” Bonifacio said into his ear, when Jacinto’s heart speaking into his head finally finished unloading with a soundless, gentle whimper. “If I may… I would like to be that father figure. If it doesn’t displease you.”

There was that tone again in his voice, and Jacinto could feel the sincerity in Bonifacio’s head.

Blearily, he nodded.

“I couldn’t ask for more.” He muttered, muffled by Bonifacio’s shirt, and watery with the tears he couldn’t shed.

He felt a kiss in his hair and he smiled.

If Bonifacio was there for him, then so would he.

He rebuilt the crystal walls, made them harder than ever before.

And this time, he made sure they covered _both_ his mind—

And Bonifacio’s.


End file.
